


someday soon

by myeyesarenotblue



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Past Drug Addiction, Sexuality Crisis, This is literally 4k words of Klaus and Vanya having a mental breakdown, no beta we die like ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25105315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myeyesarenotblue/pseuds/myeyesarenotblue
Summary: “Just wondering,” Klaus says, conversationally. “If you, perhaps, could be- ah,otherwiseinclined?”Vanya blinks.And blinks.And then twists her face into something incredibly alarmed. “I’m not gay,” she says, matter of factly, and Klaus- gets the impression this is not the first time she’s had this conversation. “I’m- I’m not gay, I like men”
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 45
Kudos: 440





	someday soon

**Author's Note:**

> I refuse to believe Vanya is straight <3

Klaus can’t make Ben corporeal. 

He just can’t. 

He thought he could, maybe, if he played his cards right, if he stopped drinking, and smoking, and getting high, if he stopped all the things that were messing up his body. He’s beginning to wonder if the problem was never in his body but in his mind. 

He’s- 

“Klaus,” Ben asks, carefully. “Are you okay?” 

Is he? 

He thinks he might not be. 

He sits day after day after day and tries with all of his might to give his brother the one good thing he can give him, and when he’s tired of trying and failing then he tells himself he can try to bring Dave out from whatever hellhole he’s been wandering in alone for the past fifty years, and he tell himself he won’t fail but he does. 

It’s- 

Klaus breathes out, musters a hint of a smile for Ben. “I need a break,” he announces, and he stands up from the bunch of cushions they were sitting in. 

He can’t keep training for another single second. 

“Oh,” Ben says, standing up as well. “Want me to go with you?” 

“No,” Klaus says, a little too quickly, and then he feels bad about it, snaps his eyes shut for a brief moment. “It’s okay, I just need- some air, I won’t be long” 

Ben looks at him for a moment or two, considering, but then he nods, smiles something that’s probably meant to be comforting. “Okay,” he mumbles, “I’ll be here” 

Klaus nods, smiles, too. 

Then he walks out of the room. 

He’s- 

He needs something, and it’s not air. 

If he’s remembering correctly, he duct taped a little baggie of oxy to the underside of Dad’s desk in his office when he was seventeen or so. He figured it would be the perfect hiding spot, the one place no one would suspect, and he was a hundred percent right. 

It’s probably still there. 

It _has_ to be, because if it’s not, then Klaus genuinely does not know what he’s going to do. 

He allows himself a second to take a deep breath, to tell himself that, yes, Ben will be beyond pissed, but it shouldn’t be any different to any other goddamned time he’s stuffed pills in his mouth. He’ll come around, eventually. 

The bedrooms and Dad’s office are in opposite sides of the house, but still, Klaus makes it in record time, both because he’s a little too jittery and anxious and because he’s afraid he’s going to run into someone. 

The office is unlocked. 

The pills are still there. 

Klaus- grabs them, stares at them, and stares at them, and stares at them. 

He feels like his mind is full of static, white noise that fills all his senses and dulls every feeling that isn’t despair. He’s- 

He feels like he doesn’t deserve those pretty little pills, expired and of questionable provenance as they are. Or maybe he does, and the thing he doesn’t deserve is the never-ending clarity and unlabored breaths that come with sobriety. 

It’s all mushy, in his mind, a mismatch of emotions. 

Either way, Klaus grabs them, tucks them into his back pocket and hurries to step out of the office because he just can’t stand staying in Dad’s office for longer than necessary. 

The hallway is deserted, and Klaus leans against a wall, lets his eyes wander and tries counting all the panels in the ceiling. There are far too many of them. He doesn’t make it past ten. 

The walls start trembling. 

The floor starts shaking. 

The windows start rattling. 

A heavy rain breaks out, sudden and unexpected, outside. 

There’s muffled screaming, voices being raised, two people shouting at each other. 

Klaus straightens up, doesn’t waste a single second thinking about it, and, instead, ducks into the nearest stairwell, follows the worst of the noise. “Guys?” he calls, but there’s no one. 

He stands on the landing of the stairs, looking around, and then- 

Vanya. 

Walking past him, stomping, really, her face twisted into an almost child-like putter. 

Then it’s Five’s voice, somewhere not too far away. “Vanya, _come back here!_ We’re not done training!” and there’s a bitter note, there, harsh, and angry, and resentful in a way Five just never is around them, around her. 

And _oh_ , Klaus thinks, _oh_. 

It’s not just him that’s been desperately trying and failing, is it? 

It’s not just him that’s been poked and prodded, subjected to training methods that are miles better than Dad’s but still not perfect, questioned, made to try and control something he’s beginning to believe he’ll never be able to fully control. 

Vanya vanishes into a hallway just as Five warps into space beside him. 

“Where is she?” Five barks. 

And Klaus, he knows he’s got no clue what just went on between them, he knows Five can be cruel when he wants to be, he knows _Vanya_ can be twice as cruel, but he also- 

He also knows frustration, more than he knows himself. 

He knows trying, and failing, and failing, and failing. 

He lifts up a hand and points to the exact opposite direction Vanya went in. “That way,” he says, smiling as cheerily as he can. 

Five nods, jumps away, off in a wild goose chase. 

He drops the smile, as soon as Five’s gone, and then he’s walking carefully, slowly, heading towards Vanya for no good reason at all. 

The hallway leads to a mostly unused part of the house, a set of shut doors Klaus can’t be sure he’s actually ever even seen before. He wonders just how the hell he’s going to find Vanya, there, but then he sees it. A door. Partly open, the gathered dust in front of it disturbed. 

He opens the door. 

Vanya looks up at him, something wild in her eyes. 

The room is tiny, stuffed top to bottom with random things Dad didn’t deem worthy enough to be displayed somewhere else, full of old paintings, broken furniture, mounted animals. It’s got a tiny window, and it rattles steadily with the blows of the rain. 

At least the house’s not shaking anymore, Klaus thinks. 

“What are you doing here?” Vanya asks, her voice carefully measured. 

“Uh,” Klaus starts, feeling awkward all of the sudden, and he shrugs, tells himself not to tense up his shoulders. “I don’t know, I guess I was worried about you” 

Vanya breathes out, heavily, agitated, and she looks straight ahead, unseeing. 

Klaus steps into the room, shuts the door behind him. “Hey, mind if I hang out here for a bit?” and he very pointedly does not wait for an answer before walking over to the dingy little couch Vanya’s sitting in and dropping beside her. 

The thing’s too small. 

His knee brushes against hers. 

He waits, for a second or two, just to make sure Vanya won’t try to kick him out, and then he turns to her. “Wanna talk about it?” 

_“No,”_ Vanya says, loudly, forcefully. 

Thunder rumbles all around them. 

The window shakes and shivers with the force of it. 

“Okay,” Klaus says, a little too quickly. “Alright, you don’t have to. It was just an idea” 

Vanya closes her eyes, twists her neck back. “Sorry,” she says, simply, and nothing really happens but no more thunder comes so Klaus counts it as a win. 

It’s kind of ironic, in a way, that her problem is that she can’t keep her power from spilling and acting out, while his is that he can’t make his power do anything at all, no matter how hard he tries. It’d be easy to argue both situations are wildly different things, but, ultimately, Klaus thinks, they’re the same. They’re not in control. Their minds are not their own. 

He might not understand a single thing about spontaneous rain, cracked walls and shattered windows, but he thinks he understands more than he wishes he ever did about that broken feeling, wide and all-embracing, dreadful. 

He forces a smile on his face, wide, and warm, and definitely not relaxed. “We should have a sleepover,” he blurts, before he’s fully thought it through. 

Vanya raises an eyebrow. 

“No, we totally should,” Klaus says, and suddenly he feels like he’s bouncing with anxious energy, ready to burst. The baggie of oxy feels heavy, in his pocket. “I know Allison’s in L.A. and she’s got the best makeup out of the three of us, but I’m sure we can make do with whatever she left in her room” and he turns to her, ready to talk and plan and scheme, but she’s- 

She’s looking at him, an expression he just can’t describe on her face. “How do you do it?” she asks, nonsensically, and she looks haunted. 

“Uh,” Klaus starts, smartly. “Do what?” 

Vanya twists her lips, and no sound comes out past a broken croak. Then she’s laughing, humorless, defeated. “I just- I- I wanna be like you, Klaus” she says, and Klaus can’t help flinching away, flinching away from a sudden flash of a lifetime ago, Luther saying almost the exact same words to him, too drunk, too gutted and grief-stricken for a life lost to blind faith. 

“No,” Klaus says, soft, sounding a little too broken-hearted, even to his ears. “No, Vanya, you don’t want that” 

“But I do!” Vanya babbles, “I do! I just don’t know-” a pause, words stuck in her throat. “No matter what I do, I can’t-” she breathes in, and breathes out, and breathes in, and breathes out. _“How do you do it?”_

“Vanya-” 

“How are you always so _happy_ , even after everything?” 

He’s not, he wants to say. He’s not. 

He’s resigned to a lot of things in life. He’s made his peace with something that will never be true happiness because he’s just not wired for that sort of thing. He’s calm. He’s content. He’s miserable, most of the time. 

Not a single sound comes out of his mouth. 

Vanya carries on, busy in a nervous breakdown of her own. “I just don’t get it, Klaus. It’s- since we were children, how are you so _confident_ , and so _carefree_ , and-” she breathes something that resembles a sob, “and your power is so awful, and you have _me_ for a sister, and-” 

“Hey,” Klaus says, interrupting. The word tastes weird, in his mouth. “What’s so wrong with you being my sister?” 

“I tried to kill you,” Vanya says. “I _did_ kill you, in another lifetime” 

Klaus breathes out very slowly. “Well,” he starts, dragging the word. “That’s a whole ‘nother lifetime you’re talking about, V. We’re very much alive in this one” 

She breathes out a huff of laughter, barely there. “It’s not just not that, though,” and she runs a hand over her face, defeated and distressed. 

Klaus watches her. She- 

She doesn’t look good. 

Her breathing turns shallow, her words quick and frantic. “It’s- it’s _everything_ , Klaus. The- you've always been yourself no matter what people tell you, and I’ve got no idea how you do it or how you go about-” 

_“Vanya-”_

“No, it’s true,” she says, bobbing her head. “It’s true. It’s like I’m broken and no matter how hard I try I just can’t walk around the way you do, with your makeup and your skirts, practically flaunting the fact that you’re-” 

And she stops. 

Freezes. 

The rain stops, too. 

Klaus shifts in his seat awkwardly, tells himself Vanya’s just in the middle something and is not, under any circumstances, like the people outside of these four walls, full of hatred and idiotic ideas. He clears his throat, looks at her. “That I’m what?” 

And she ducks her head, turns into the mousy little girl she’s been working all that hard to leave behind. “You said you were dating someone?” she mutters, to her lap. 

“Dave,” Klaus says. 

_Dave._

_Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave._

“Oh,” Vanya says, and Klaus blinks up dumbly at her. “Dave,” she echoes. 

“What about him?” Klaus manages. 

“Nothing,” Vanya says, “It’s just-” a little laugh, something bitter, like before. “I just can’t get over how you told us just like _that_ , like it was nothing” 

And- 

No, no, Klaus didn’t tell them just like _that_ , like it was nothing. It took days, and weeks, and months, and being threatened with bodily harm by both Five and Diego if he didn’t explain why he was so jittery, and anxious, and afraid, and why he’d wake up screaming in the middle of the night with an unknown man’s name in his lips. It wasn’t nothing. It was excruciatingly painful, and he only ever did it because he was tired of pretending he wasn’t grieving. 

Klaus looks up, and there’s Vanya, and her words sink in, and he realizes she’s not talking about the grief, and the pain, and the fear. It’s- 

It’s the _gay_ thing. 

He laughs, something silly and nervous, high pitched, “What, you got a problem with that?” and he’s only half kidding. 

“ _No,_ ” Vanya says, too quick, her eyes wide. “Shit, Klaus, no- I- _no_ " 

“Then what is it?” 

“Nothing,” 

“Vanya-” 

“Nothing,” she repeats, forceful, now. “Forget I said anything” 

Klaus frowns, looks at her. 

He could. 

He could forget she said anything at all, give her a pat to the head and walk out of this room only to lock himself in another one, empty, isolated, and he could shove the oxy in his mouth and lay on the floor and wait for it to hit and pass out and wake up and dread the thought of facing his family ever again and not care, anyway, because what’s the point in facing them and listening to their screaming and teary concern if he’s only gonna say he’ll stay sober this time, for real, I swear, only to find more pills the second they turn their back on him? 

He could leave Vanya alone with the faraway look on her face, with the faint trembling in her shoulders, with her questions, and her exhaustion, and her shame. 

He could. 

But- 

But what kind of shit brother would he be? 

He sighs. “Van, darling, are you-?” and he trails off, squints at her, trying to gauge a reaction. 

Her eyes turn very, very wide. _“What?”_ she barks, almost defensively. 

And he- _god_ , he’s really not the best person to be having this conversation. “Just wondering,” he says, conversationally. “If you, perhaps, could be- ah, _otherwise_ inclined?” 

She blinks. 

And she blinks. 

And then she twists her face into something incredibly alarmed. “I’m not gay,” she says, matter of factly, and Klaus- gets the impression this is not the first time she’s had this conversation. “I’m- I’m not gay, I like men” 

Klaus can’t help rolling his eyes, only a little bit. “So? I like women” 

“You do?” Vanya blurts, looking at him like he’s grown a second head. 

“Yeah, sure” Klaus says. “Granted, I do lean more towards the gentlemen than the ladies, but, uh,” he shrugs, looks down. “I’ve had my girlfriends” 

If he can call them that. 

He really had no idea what a relationship was supposed to look like before Dave. 

“Oh,” Vanya says. 

Klaus gives her a moment. 

He’s- 

He’s good with people. He knows he’s good with people, but whenever he’s talking about something that matters, he just- he can’t shake that feeling, that maybe he’s wrong, maybe he’s misinterpreting every single piece of evidence. 

Because- Vanya doesn’t _have_ to be gay just because she had a reaction to _him_ being gay, especially when that reaction came right after whatever the hell happened between her and Five, and after she spent several hours in a training room messing up the exact same training exercises she’s been messing up for months. 

Maybe she’s just- 

_Tired._

Just like him. 

But then again- Klaus looks at her, looks at her and wonders _what if_ , what if he’s not wrong, and what if he’s right and what if he leaves his sister wallowing in that never-ending pool of confusion and shame and second-guessing? 

He remembers being a teenager, a kid, really, and realizing for the very first time he was different, he liked different things, finding out there was a _me_ and there was a _them_ and there was an all-consuming feeling in his chest that felt something like a gut-wrenching resignation to a life of hesitation, and fear, and estrangement. 

“Vanya,” Klaus blurts, not quite knowing what he’s going to say. She looks up at him, her face carefully blank. “I, uh- you do know it’s okay, right?” 

“What, being gay?” 

He nods. 

“Of course I know,” Vanya says. “I’m not an asshole” 

“Of course you know,” Klaus echoes, and he chews the inside of his cheek. “But do you, though? Do you, really?” 

Vanya- 

Stays quiet, looks down. 

“It’s-” Klaus starts, awkwardly. “It’s okay. It’s okay if you like girls. No one’s gonna be mad at you. It’s natural, Vanya. A lot of people feel the way you do.” 

She keeps looking down, straight at her lap. A strand of hair covers most of her face, but Klaus can just make out redden cheeks, a distraught frown. “I like men,” she mutters, but there’s no fight in her, no emotion- she speaks like the words are rehearsed. “I _date_ men” 

“V, there’s like- _a lot_ of ways in which you can like the ladies,” he says, and he grabs her hand and _squeezes_ just because he feels like it. “There are many, a-many sexualities out there in the world, like- like me, for example. I’m pan.” 

She looks up, a question in her eyes. 

“Pansexual,” Klaus clarifies. “It means I’m into all sorts of people, of all sorts of genders” 

“Oh,” Vanya says, weakly. “I hadn’t heard that word before” 

Klaus hums. “That’s okay, you don’t have to know it all” 

A couple seconds tick by, quiet, overwhelmingly silent. 

Then Vanya’s facing him properly, a sort of frail certainty in her face. “It’s just sometimes- sometimes, I-” and the certainty leaves, and only a hint of mortification remains. “Sometimes I look at girls and I _feel_ like-” 

She stops. 

Klaus frowns. “Like what?” 

She sighs. “I always thought I was just jealous, that I wanted to be like them, but- but it’s _different._ I- it's just different. I was always jealous of Allison when we were kids and it _doesn’t_ feel like that, Klaus” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, like, there was this girl in my orchestra and she-” Vanya stops dead in her tracks, twists her mouth into a scowl full of something that can only be described as hatred. 

“Van?” 

“A girl that _Leonard_ killed, by the way,” Vanya says. 

Thunder rumbles furiously outside. 

No more rain comes. 

Klaus snaps his eyes shut, blindly squeezes Vanya’s hand. “Shit,” he says, “Shit, I’m sorry. That fucking guy really fucked us up, huh?” 

Vanya nods, looks down, mutters something under her breath. 

Klaus- 

He can’t even think about that shitshow of a week without feeling like something inside of him is going to snap, to break, and tear, and shatter, never to be put together again. 

He takes a deep breath, shifts in his seat. 

“Tell me about her,” he says. 

“What?” 

“The girl in your orchestra,” and he wiggles his eyebrows, smiles something playful and sweet just for Vanya. “Was she like, your very first girl-crush? Was she hot?” 

Vanya laughs, muted but there. “I guess? I don’t know” 

“C’mon, who was she?” 

“Her name was Helen,” Vanya says, and she gets a bit of a dreamy look on her eyes. “She was first chair. Her Stravinsky was- _insane_ , I’ve never seen anyone play like that” 

“That’s nice,” Klaus mutters, even though he’s got no clue what that means. 

Vanya nods. “Yeah, she- we weren’t really friends or anything, and she was- kind of mean, actually, but- but sometimes I’d look at her and it was like-” she sighs, bites her lip. “It wasn’t jealousy. It was different.” 

Klaus looks at her, smiles lopsidedly. 

_“Girl-crush,”_ he mouths. 

Vanya smiles, real, and bright. “Maybe. Just- _maybe_ , I don’t know” 

Klaus feels- _lighter_ , somehow, knowing there’s a smile on Vanya’s face and he’s the one who put it there. He smiles, too. “No pressure,” he says. “And I’m telling you, there are tons of labels to choose from,” but which ones, exactly? “Maybe Ben’s read a book about sexualities and stuff, we could ask him” 

“Oh god,” Vanya blurts, suddenly horrified, and looks around blindly at the empty room. “Is Ben here? Did he hear all that?” 

“What? No, Vanya, relax,” Klaus starts, and waits until she’s looking him in the eye. “He’s back in my bedroom, I think. We were training and I-” 

He what? 

He ditched his brother and his never-ending patience to go dig around the house for expired medication? 

Suddenly he feels- 

He feels like the oxy in his pocket is burning up a hole through his leg, he feels like he’s worst person who’s ever graced the earth, and he feels shame, and he feels sorrow, and then he feels like it’s no use trying to stay sober, anyway, because _Dave_ doesn’t deserve to be even _looked_ at by someone as pitiful as him. 

He’s- 

He doesn’t know what he’s doing, here. 

He’s- 

He snaps his eyes shut, sucks in a breath and digs into his pants’ pocket before he can think better of it and regret it. The pills are- 

So very pretty, and so very tempting. 

He shoves them into Vanya’s lap and looks away. 

There’s an intake of air, a rustle of plastic, then Vanya, hesitant, almost afraid, _“Klaus,”_

“I didn’t take any,” Klaus says. “I wanted to, but I didn’t. I swear. I didn’t take any.” 

“I’m- _Klaus_ ,” 

Klaus keeps looking stubbornly up ahead, and he feels, childishly, like maybe if he doesn’t look at her face, if he doesn’t see the disappointment, the distress, the pity, then maybe it just won’t be there and he can keep pretending everything is fine. 

But Vanya tugs at his sleeve, squeezes his arm. “Klaus, look at me” 

And he does. 

Vanya looks very earnest. There’s some distress, there, in her eyes, or maybe it’s just plain concern. Klaus can’t find a single trace of disappointment or pity. “I believe you,” she says. 

“Yeah?” Klaus mutters, voice so very small. 

“Yeah,” Vanya says, nodding. 

**Author's Note:**

> Can you believe I wrote the first draft for this back in march 2019??? Wild. 
> 
> follow me on tumblr [@myeyesarenotblue](https://myeyesarenotblue.tumblr.com/)


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